From late spring to now, the issue of marriage in Canada has swirled through the media. As you know, a strong effort was made on the part of many faith groups to turn the tide on one facet of this issue, namely the legalization of same sex marriage. I want to thank all of you who shared this problem with your congregations and called them to action. It had an effect on your member of parliament and I believe that it has opened doors for Christians to begin to speak to the Canadian ethos at the governmental level.

But the government is not the only level where we need to speak to the soul of Canada. This needs to be done at all levels, in our preaching and teaching, in the communiqués that we write and in private conversations.

“Speaking to the soul of Canada.” What do I mean by that? Recently a study of Gentiles who helped Jews escape the Holocaust was published. These Gentiles who risked or gave their lives are called “the righteous” by the state of Israel. Every nation has a choice, day by day, year by year, to take a pathway of righteousness or a pathway of evil. It is my conviction that the Christian church that is located within the context of a given nation/culture should continually sound a call to follow the pathway of righteousness. This pathway can be walked by a society even though the majority are not Christians.

Some see a tension here, for they fear that to speak righteousness into society interferes with the call to evangelism. How can we run seeker services, where people come from the outside bearing all the current attitudes of society, and at the same time speak of righteousness and unrighteousness? Certainly, the way some have sought to fulfill this duty has created an atmosphere of condemnation, so antithetical to announcing good news to lost people. Yes, it is so easy to cross over into speech or action that is perceived either as unloving, or as being really over the edge. This harsh reality can cause us to perceive ourselves as being caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

May I suggest that we reject this as a false dichotomy? It seems to me that, when we affirm such an either/or, we are affirming a conflict between the call of the evangelist and the call of the prophet. Does the Bible ever portray a chasm between these two roles? I do not think so. Instead, I think we learn from the New Testament how these two mandates can work together.

When soldiers approached John and asked what repentance meant, he told them to be satisfied with their wages. This had the extended meaning of not using low wages to justify ripping off common people (extortion) in the form of accepting bribes by falsely accusing them. Anyone who has traveled knows how common this practice is in many places, and how this corruption deeply damages the ability of a nation to advance. What we should note is the combination of John’s call to individuals, a call that encompassed both evangelism and the prophetic word. John said that individual repentance means to stop actions that are seriously harming others, harm that spreads like a cancer.

I believe Canadian society is again gathering before the prophet/evangelists of our time and asking what spiritual renewal, and its corollary repentance, looks like. We need to develop answers that cut to the core issues. By that I mean that we, like John, call for individual repentance that has wide effect.

And we must not step back from this call in the name of love and grace. Pornography seriously harms the user, the user’s spouse, children, and, very significantly, the men, women and children who are its subjects. Pornography is for some a gateway sin into violence and the use of prostitution. Prostitution, in turn, is the foundation of a massive sex-slave trade involving thousands of women and children in Canada. We must not let men and women take a pass on this sin, for to do so is to fail utterly to love them. The same kind of analysis can be applied to many actions - gambling, drug use, and yes, sexual behaviour outside a monogamous marriage between a man and a woman.

Repentance also involves truth in action. John told the common people to be willing to help each other when they saw people in need. Our world is sick with so many wounds, and the requests to help keep coming. I would encourage you to consider stewardship as not only part of your discipling ministry, but as part of your prophetic ministry as well.I think that materialism and greed are best rebuked by generosity. When people who produce wealth are generous, their generosity affects the moral climate in which they make money, and vividly confronts the ethic that has the production of wealth as its end rather than a means.

As a family of churches, we must begin to use our generosity practically in our own community. It is also important to give to our partner ministries so that practical help flows to needy people in far away places.

But we also must be the hands of Jesus in our community. I was so struck recently when I read a memorial written by A.B. Simpson for his co-worker Henry Wilson. In it, Simpson speaks of Wilson’s involvement in various rescue missions, and then names about half a dozen of the leaders in the rescue mission work on ManhattanIsland. This spoke to me not only of Wilson’s involvement, but of Simpson’s as well. On our website we hope, in the near future, to begin to tell you how many of our Alliance family churches have rolled up their sleeves to serve their communities.

As we begin this new year, let us consider this linkage between our prophetic and evangelistic call. I urge you to not only speak to individual souls, but to the whole life context in which we all live, to speak righteousness in both words and actions.

Your very real friend,

Franklin Pyles